Battle of Ap Bac

The Battle of Ap Bac was a major battle of the Vietnam War which was fought on 2 January 1963. The US and South Vietnamese ARVN launched an operation to capture a Viet Cong radio transmitter from the village of Ap Tan Thoi, but they were ambushed and forced to retreat in a major Viet Cong propaganda victory.

In December 1962, the 7th ARVN Division was ordered to capture the Viet Cong radio transmitter located 40 miles southeast of Saigon at Tan Thoi, which was surrounded by rice paddies and was linked by an irrigation dike to the nearby hamlet of Ap Bac. Intelligence claimed that the transmitter was guarded by only 120 Viet Cong guerrillas, so US advisor John Paul Vann laid out a foolproof plan of attack: 1,200 South Vietnamese troops would attack the village from three sides, and the Viet Cong fleeing through a left-open gap would be destroyed by artillery and airstrikes while Vann observed the fighting from a spotter plane. However, there were actually over 350 Viet Cong in the area, and communist spies warned them that they were soon to be attacked. The guerrillas, including Le Quan Cong, prepared trenches and bunkers in front of an open field, where they would be able to easily pick off the enemies. At 6:35 AM on 2 January 1963, ten American helicopters ferried an ARVN company just north of Tan Thoi, and they met no resistance. Meanwhile, two Civil Guard battalions approached Ap Bac from the south on foot. The Viet Cong ambushed them when they reached within 100 feet, and several ARVN soldiers were killed, while survivors hid behind the dike. Ten more helicopters filled with troops, escorted by five gunships, moved in to help, but the Viet Cong used mortars and machine guns to attack the helicopters as they landed. The Viet Cong machine-guns hit 14 of the 15 US aircraft, and 5 would be destroyed, killing and wounding American crewmen. The invigorated Viet Cong concentrated their fire on the ARVN struggling to get out of the downed helicopters in a "duck shoot", and Vann radioed the ARVN command and urged them to send an APC unit to rescue the men. Captain James B. Scanlon, a US advisor, asked Captain Ly Tong Ba to advance to aid the ARVN troops, but Ly refused, as his superiors had told him to stay in position. After an hour, Ly was finally convinced to move, and it was two more hours before the APCs made their way through the paddies to reach the trapped men. By that point, the battle was mostly over. Infantry charged out of the APCs to spray the woods with fire, a tactic which had caused the Viet Cong to flee in the past. However, the Viet Cong stood firm and attacked eight of the APCs, killing six of their gunners. When a few more APCs advanced, guerrillas leapt from their foxholes and hurled hand grenades at them, demoralizing the gunners and forcing them to withdraw to past the wrecked helicopters. The ARVN refused one last counterattack, and the Viet Cong withdrew that same night, taking most of their dead and wounded with them. 83 South Vietnamese troops and three American advisors were killed in the battle, the first major Viet Cong victory of the war.